Living Wage Week begins this Sunday (5th November). In his last blog, our Director Angus Ritchie suggested ways churches can mark the week – in particular supporting Clean for Good’s #WhoIsMyCleaner campaign. In this second blog, he looks at the Gospel readings set in the lectionary.  

As Living Wage Week approaches, our Director Angus Ritchie blogs on what you and your church can do to mark it, and to support the campaign.

 Living Wage Week runs from Sunday 5th to Saturday 11th November. We are suggesting a focus on the Living Wage in Sunday worship on 5th – and would encourage individuals and churches to take the #WhoIsMyCleaner challenge.

Ana França-Ferrera joined the CTC team in July to co-ordinate the Near Neighbours programme. Here she reflects on her first few months, and what the programme can offer to local people.

The Near Neighbours small grants is a programme with the aim to support community groups and organisations to bring together communities that are religiously and ethnically diverse so they can get to know each other better. 

Tim Thorlby is CTC’s Development Director. He leads our work on missional enterprise and is also a Director, and the Chair, of Clean for Good. After launching Clean for Good in the City of London, he blogs here about the opportunity this represents for the church.

On Thursday, we launched Clean for Good in the City of London – London’s first ethical contract cleaning company. It is a business with a social purpose, aiming to change the way that cleaning is done in London, giving cleaners a fairer deal.

The Buxton Leadership Programme is underway with three new leaders – Alec James, Frankie Webster and Miriam Brittenden – joining CTC. They are spending half their week working in Parliament and the other practising community organising in East London. The Co-ordinator of the programme Dunstan Rodrigues introduces them and explores the significance and purpose of their endeavours.

It is a great delight to welcome three committed, energetic and shrewd leaders to CTC, each bringing their gifts and experiences and embedding themselves in the lively worlds of grassroots community organising and Parliamentary politics.

In 2016, Laura Macfarlane was one of the CTC summer interns who went on to initiate the Vocation Project  –  designed to create spaces for vocational discernment for all. She is now serving on the Stepney Intern Scheme. 

Here she reflects on the value of community for discernment…

There is a famous passage in 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 which likens the church to the body of Christ and its members to body parts. Paul writes that each person, like each part of the body, is vital and can fulfil a role that no other person can. Each person is equal but all are unique.

Richard Springer – Director of CTC’s Urban Leadership School, and Assistant Priest at St George-in-the-East in Shadwell – blogs about an exciting pilot project the School is launching in east London.

Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) citizens in England have historically been marginalised in a variety of ways – in local communities and in society more generally. Unfortunately, the established church has been no exception. Post-war arrivals to these shores, in the Windrush generation, met with a cold reception in many congregations. The proportion of BAME people being ordained in the Church of England remain appallingly low – and direct recruitment programmes are being put together to do something about this.

Tim Thorlby is CTC’s Development Director. He leads our work on missional enterprise and is also a Director of Clean for Good. Here he gives an update on our work with Clean for Good.

Since 2014, CTC has been working in partnership with a team of churches and Christian charities to develop, secure investment for and launch a brand new, ethical cleaning company for London – Clean for Good. CTC is a founder investor.

Last month, Alexander Rougeau took part in our Urban Leadership School, on a summer placement in the Catholic Parish of Manor Park. In this blog, he reflects on his experience – and the thirst God has placed in our hearts for justice.

It is not difficult to see that the world is unfair. When there is injustice, the soul needs change just as the body needs water. Like someone dehydrated, without fairness the soul becomes desperate, restless, and irritable. There is always injustice, so we are always thirsty.

Dave Morris took part in this summer’s Urban Leadership School, interning at Ilford Salvation Army. In this blog, he reflects on the central role of sharing and listening to stories in the practice of community organising.

Something that has brought together all of the interns on the Summer Internship is story-telling. In the remembering and the telling we have all learned so much about ourselves and each other.  Sometimes we are in stitches laughing; other times they’re followed by a weighty silence. But every single story has given me insight into who that person is.